SACRAMENTO / Restaurant nutrition bill advances

Greg Lucas, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Published
4:00 am PDT, Friday, June 1, 2007

2007-06-01 04:00:00 PDT Sacramento -- Despite opposition from restaurants and business groups, the state Senate approved a bill Thursday to require restaurant chains to show the nutritional content of all items on their menus.

"This is an important step forward in the national fight to curb obesity," said the bill's co-author, Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco. "We ought to give people forthright information and allow them to make choices."

Restaurants counter that most chains already make the information available either on the Internet or in on-site brochures customers can ask for.

Supporters of the bill say nutritional information would be more effective in curbing obesity if right next to the item on the menu.

If approved by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California could become the first state to make such a requirement. Similar bills are pending in Illinois, Arizona and Connecticut, among other states. New York City is scheduled to require fast food chains to place calories next to items on their menu boards.

Under the legislation approved Thursday, chains with 10 or more restaurants would have to show the number of calories, grams of carbohydrates, milligrams of sodium, grams of saturated fat and grams of trans fat for each regular item on their menus.

The bottom of each page of the menu must also say in a "clear and conspicuous" way: "Recommended limits for a 2,000 calorie daily diet are 20 grams of saturated fat and 2,300 milligrams of sodium."

For fast food restaurants with menu boards, calories would have to be posted. If a customer asks, the fast food restaurant must have additional nutritional information to hand out.

"This bill doesn't make us healthier, it simply imposes a burden on businesses," said Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks (Sacramento County). "It's one of those nanny government things."

The California Restaurant Association opposes the bill, saying there is no correlation between obesity rates falling and the public posting of nutritional information.

The bill, SB120, was sent to the Assembly on a 22-17 vote by the 40-member Senate.

Despite his public calls for better fitness and hosting a summit on obesity, Schwarzenegger has taken no position on the bill. If he were to sign the bill, it would take effect Jan. 1, 2009.